Traditional biomedical monitoring of patient pharmaceutical administration is often clinical in nature with results ordered by a doctor in a hospital or medical office setting and performed in a centralized laboratory setting. Even when patients are informed as to the blood levels of their pharmaceutical body chemistry it is often through the lens of the primary medical provider.
Using traditional methods, if a patient wishes to know detailed information about personal pharmaceutical levels in the body they must first schedule an office visit. Absent an emergency, such visits usually take place weeks to months after the request is made. To determine body levels of pharmaceutical products ingested, blood is drawn and sent to an outside laboratory. Several days later the results are reported back to the primary healthcare physician who interprets the laboratory results and provides a high level summary to the patient.
Despite the rapid expansion of ‘big data’ healthcare information, patients are rarely the owners or curators of their own healthcare information leading to reduced choices and far fewer options in healthcare data portability when seeking out alternate providers.